


an unfamiliar line, reassuring

by madeinessos



Category: Stoker (2013)
Genre: Age Difference, F/F, Horror, Incest, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeinessos/pseuds/madeinessos
Summary: The cold heel of India’s palm on Evelyn’s low neckline. More husks of fingerprints instead of diamonds or pearls. Instead of kisses. Instead of a leather belt.Softly, Evelyn swallowed.
Relationships: Evelyn Stoker/India Stoker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	an unfamiliar line, reassuring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dulcetta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulcetta/gifts).



> Title from “Summer Wine,” the song that Evelyn dances to in the movie.

On the day when the kitchen back door swung open for the first time in a long while, the sound like fingernails scrabbling at leather, the last of the clock batteries in the house had just failed and the pounding rain had finally stopped.

The sun was shining. Golden. Fresh. And half-melted.

Evelyn, huddled in the shadows, half-veiled with her rumpled red-gold hair, absently reached for it and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.

She wished she had a spoon. She always ate ice cream with a little spoon. Either red plastic or polished silver would do; she wasn’t that picky, really. Scoop it all up, neatly and eagerly, into her mouth. Evelyn had always disliked the thought of chasing melted ice cream. Dripping past her fingers, past the tip of a cup-less cone, and onto the dirty ground where she couldn’t possibly hope to salvage it. Scoop it all, all, all up into her glad mouth.

Face the world with a glad heart, the nuns told Evelyn when she’d still been a child.

Evelyn had never known what that blood-pumping organ had to do with anything – after all, she ate chicken hearts and banana hearts and cake pops shaped like hearts – but she did have a mouth, and she could form glad shapes with it. Speak with it in French, Spanish, English, and boarding school religiosity. Cajole with it. Mouth pleasantries and kisses with it. It had helped her a lot out here in this world, was the point.

“You should rest,” the voice said. It smelled like the sunlight slowly dripping from Evelyn’s fingertips. Raw and fresh, that was. Cracked open.

Evelyn trembled.

The fog was cold. Untended and unfamiliar, a heavy breathing thing swirling around Evelyn’s naked boat. Her lamp barely cast a circle of light. She could be comfortable here if only she slept. She could lull herself to sleep in time with the slow pulsing of the dark deep surrounding her. After all Evelyn was used to being alone: she’d been alone in the chapel, forehead against the pew smelling of stale holy water; she’d been alone in Ms. Mathilde’s bedroom, cheek against the rug embroidered with carmine apples; and she’d been alone in her own bedroom, the side of her face pressed on her bare arm and her throat still tight from Charlie’s madness and Richard’s belt and India’s gall, trying not to mind the wormy egg yolk smell drowned in bottlefuls of bleach. Evelyn preferred being alone; she rather liked the stillness of the aftermath.

Then a pair of strong hands settled on her upper arms. They started to lead her through the fog. They were clothed in something starched; Evelyn could feel the crackle of it on the back of her silk-clad thighs.

Richard?

“You’ll feel much better after some rest.”

The voice felt very warm in this fog, as warm as the hissing and spitting, the crackling, of – of lightning maybe, of something yet unfelt. Of something unfamiliar prowling through silk. It made a lock of Evelyn’s hair tickle the shell of her ear.

Yes, yes, she should rest.

Evelyn couldn’t blink off the fog this time. She must not have slept in weeks. And her limbs felt heavy, like viscous things sloshing about, making her skin feel tight. So tight, dear God.

“Are we,” mumbled Evelyn, “there yet?”

“Yes.” A beat. “I’m here now.”

Evelyn was grateful to the hands. Architect’s hands, she thought with a watery smile, Richard’s hands. They brought her to what must be her rooms. Maneuvered her. Propped her up with pillows. Briefly fussed with her limbs, with how she was set, brushing the feather-light touch of her lock of hair away from her face – before withdrawing entirely.

Evelyn wanted them back, but she subsided as soon as she sensed the familiar and dew-scented shadows of her rooms, and gladly let them engulf her. Comforted.

In here, time stilled. She could rest.

Pretty rooms for a pretty woman.

Pretty house for a pretty wife.

*

Evelyn woke up.

Stretched. Silky lotioned limbs and smooth sheets.

Today she felt like eating French omelette.

Today she also felt like indulging in a drawn-out hair brushing session.

*

Evelyn blearily glanced up from the broken eggshells by the stove, the whisk limp in her hand, her dressing gown askew and smelling of port as well as of her unfortunate attempt to bake a strawberry cake last week – or was it two weeks ago, or maybe that had been last month, hadn’t it, oh she wasn’t sure anymore with all the curtains in the house pulled shut – when she noticed the kitchen door opening. Almost soundless; fingernails scrabbling at leather.

Spilling the sun onto the faded tiles. Light biting into the dimness.

It brought with it the scents of the untended gardens. Orchids with their eggshells and charcoals, thought Evelyn briefly, and a sea of untrimmed grass, and rain plowing the earth.

She shuddered. The unfelt, crackling down her arms.

She’d had her wedding reception out there. There’d been a cream marquee and a live band. Gleaming stretches of grass, hedges in neat artful shapes, beribboned tree branches. Pearls on her hair. And cherries in her wine. Guests clapping. Her dead parents’ solicitor and her guardian, Ms. Mathilde of the heavily-lidded smiles and short conch-pink nails, puffing away from a lacquered cigarette holder. Her old Mother Superior in grey and white, pianist’s hands softly mimicking the clapping. She also remembered Gwendolyn Stoker’s tight disapproving smile, that cow. Oh, and Richard dipping Evelyn, his hands sure yet gentle, and kissing her neck, and both of them laughing. Her wedding sun and her wedding cake both glistening fatly, half-melted.

So long ago, all so long ago. Once upon a time.

Absently, Evelyn clutched the whisk to her chest. Dribbled raw egg down her dressing gown.

The untended garden scents were steadily creeping across the faded kitchen tiles. Soundlessly. Fresh yet decayed. Raw.

It was quickly followed by a duffel bag. It appeared on the floor just as silently, a dark, nondescript leather thing.

And then that was followed by a pair of dark flat boots.

Evelyn tried to blink off the fog.

The dark boots. Richard’s old belt was level with gift-bearing hands. A small cake box.

For a moment, Evelyn thought that she must have truly gone mad. Because how else could this be explained – how? It must be Richard. Now that the floors had been cleaned of blood and bits of skull, yolk sloshing around its cracked shell, he’d come back to court her again. He’d always been such a romantic, not to mention, attentive of her preferences. Strawberry cake and cherries in her wine. A drive. A little picnic. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood on the radio. Richard had loved hearing her recite Djamal Amrani and Hélène Cixous in between bites of cake.

The boots nudged the kitchen door shut. Heel-up. Brisk. Just like how India used to –

Like how –

– India – ?

Black tights.

Knee-length skirt, the red of crushed cherries.

Evelyn’s own salmon blouse. She’d know that blouse anywhere.

Evelyn tamped down on a gasp, accidentally biting on her tongue. It came out as a starved, kittenish whimper.

India’s dark hair was pulled back from her face and tied low at her nape. Her face was more angular than Evelyn remembered, making her eyes look larger and darker. Pools of oil. They were slowly sliding from Evelyn’s tousled hair to her tightly clutched whisk to down, down below, on her velour slippers.

But Evelyn still felt that unblinking drip on the back of her neck. She repressed another shudder.

From Evelyn’s cold lips the words came automatically: “India. Good morning. I wasn’t expecting you.”

India’s lips twitched. “It’s afternoon.”

Her voice had grown rounder; something previously pencilled in, now fully shaded.

Evelyn said nothing. She watched as India approached her, steps unhurried, deliberate. India’s boots made no sound. But her body, leaner and more solid than the fog, spooned through the kitchen’s dust and shadows and scraps of light. India’s back stood straighter than Evelyn remembered; like her angular face, all the childish softness had melted away. Unbidden and fleeting, Evelyn wished that she had been there with – with a handkerchief.

Had it been that long?

“Yes,” said India. “I’ll tell you all about it later, but you should rest for now.” And slightly raising the small box, “I brought you cake. Special. For later, after your rest.”

A pettish echo in Evelyn’s head tried to grope for something familiar: _What if I don’t want to rest?_

India set the box beside the stove, beside the eggshells, before settling her hands back on Richard’s old belt. Thumbs jutting out. Short unpainted nails. Deep-creased knuckles.

Evelyn found her voice. She unstuck her lips from one another. “Strawberry?”

“What else?”

Then the pools of oil settled on the whisk Evelyn was clutching to her chest. They stayed there for some moments, unchanging, and then India’s voice was saying, “Here.”

The whisk was dipped back into the bowl of beaten eggs. Evelyn then felt a cold thumb on the hollow between her collarbones. One, two, three rubs. Husks of India’s fingerprints, left very near her fluttering pulse. Now the thumb was swiping down a damp, dishevelled fold of her mint dressing gown.

When had Evelyn been touched last? Journalists, Mother Superior from her old school, detectives, Ms. Mathilde, Charlie, Richard, MsMathildeMotherSuperior either of them.

But India –

India didn’t like to be touched. Had never liked to be touched.

“You’re touching me,” noted Evelyn, with a touch of wonder.

A light shrug from India. “Don’t see any napkins around.”

“You are touching me. India.”

Pools of oil. They ate any light that touched them. “Yes. _I_ am touching _you_.” India briefly wet her lips; the beauty mark just above her upper lip stood out more starkly than Evelyn remembered.

India went on, “I brushed your hair that one time. Remember that? But please don’t touch me.”

The cold heel of India’s palm on Evelyn’s low neckline. More husks of India’s fingerprints trailing across Evelyn’s throat, instead of diamonds or pearls. Instead of kisses. Instead of a leather belt.

Softly, Evelyn swallowed.

“Your skin’s gone dry,” India murmured. “Did you run out of lotion? Or is it moisturiser you’re using?” Her thumb slipping just a bit, presumably for a final assessment, past the neckline of Evelyn’s nightgown. Coaxing out the crackling from Evelyn’s arms and goose prickles from between her ribs.

Evelyn blinked.

What was India saying? What was happening?

And blinked. She groped for something familiar.

Hair brushing.

Once. A long time ago?

Was that familiar enough?

Conch-pink and silk, this nightgown. It had been a twin.

Still dazed, Evelyn blinked slowly and with one hand supported herself against the counter. She said, “Do you still have your matching one? The nightgown, I mean? The one I bought you?”

India wiped her hand on the lip of the bowl. Her own lips twitched again. It might have been a smile, but it was hard to tell with those unlit pools of oil, and she’d never been a smiling-faced child. Never been an affectionate child.

“It’s there in my bag,” India said.

“Oh.” Evelyn nodded once. She hadn’t got the energy to glance at the bag by the door, and so she surveyed India from head to foot. It was what she supposed mothers did; it was what Ms. Mathilde had always done and what Mother Superior had tried her best to do.

“You’re wearing my blouse.”

India said nothing to that. She did not move. Not even one of her sulky, challenging head tilts that Evelyn remembered. Her bottomless eyes were trained on Evelyn.

“It suits you,” said Evelyn and, again, nodded once. “It really does.”

The house was silent. The clock batteries had all choked to a stop and the rain had stopped scratching at the windows. Leaving a woollen hush.

Flesh stuffed with silence.

India’s hands came up in the fog. Slowly. Deliberately. As though to a skittish animal. They grasped Evelyn’s upper arms. Not quite gentle. Not quite crushing. It made Evelyn think of a coiled, practised thing. India moved closer until she was blocking the scraps of light in the kitchen, and nothing remained but the bottomless pools of oil, worse than brackish garden ponds, worse than untended and rain-plowed earth.

“Let’s get you to bed.”

*

Evelyn woke up.

Stretched. Silky lotioned limbs and smooth sheets.

She smiled at the embroidery on her bedspread. Apples and G clefs, done in reds and buttery golds to complement her rooms’ walls.

“I’m to kiss you good morning.”

Evelyn startled.

India was sat on the buttoned armchair near Evelyn’s bed. Her little feet, clad in scuffed sneakers, were dangling several inches from the hardwood floor. She was hunched in on herself – no wonder Evelyn didn’t notice her at first – uneasily coaxed into a blue poplin dress, lank hair getting in her face.

“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Evelyn smiled. “Didn’t you want to sleep in? It’s a holiday. Where’s Mrs. McGarrick?”

India’s permanent front tooth was barely peeking out. She lisped, “I’m to kiss you good morning. For my birthday.”

“Oh!” Evelyn gathered herself just in time to widen her smile. She just needed some coffee in her, she could be so groggy in the mornings. “Oh, yes. Happy birthday, sweetheart. Come here, birthday girl, let me kiss _you_ good morning.”

India stiffly walked towards her, like how she imagined she’d walked towards Ms. Mathilde or Mother Superior when she first met them. Evelyn didn’t like it. She didn’t like the awkward pause that yawned between them when India had finally reached her. She didn’t like the way India peered from behind a fall of hair, first at Evelyn herself, then at Evelyn’s bedside table of cream bottles and a bookmarked poetry book in translation, then at the fresh potted plants tucked about the room, verdant, dewy. She didn’t like that India looked as though she were lurking, a thief of a cat, or as though she were lost, as though she weren’t Evelyn’s own flesh and blood.

God’s sake, Evelyn had a glad mouth.

She beamed. She opened her arms wide.

India gave her a short kiss on the cheek. Evelyn pushed aside a lock of India’s hair and planted a kiss on her forehead.

Then India darted out of her arms, this unaffectionate child of hers. This incomprehensible child of hers. But at least India didn’t wipe off the kiss. Small mercies.

“There.” Evelyn smiled at India’s continued staring. “Happy birthday. I have a present for you, very special, very pretty, I’m sure you’ll love it. Now run along and find Mrs. McGarrick and tell her to cook us a birthday omelette. Go on. I need to dress.”

Later, when India opened Evelyn’s gift, pretty clips and prettier combs in a box lined with pink crepe, she only said a stiff “Thank you very much, Mommy,” before moving on to the animal picture books and sneakers from Richard. India was also wearing a T-shirt which ought to be kept at the back of a cupboard. But it was her favourite, apparently.

Evelyn didn’t sigh. She just polished off her drink and went to get more champagne truffles.

*

The lace collar of her Communion dress reeked of lavender. The comb holding her mantilla in place was making her scalp itch.

The Body of Christ was crumbling at the back of her throat, and her knuckles were still smarting from Mother Superior’s stick, and she’d still got a few more blocks to check off her school-issued timetable before she could call it a day.

But Evelyn didn’t tug. Didn’t scratch. Didn’t fidget. Her head remained bowed in boredom, forehead almost touching the pew. She measured the minutes with the beads of sweat trickling from the back of her aching thighs, to the hot crease of her ever-kneeling knees.

Evelyn had always kept her knees closed. The walls of the chapel, whitewashed old stones and naked angelic hips, sighed in approval.

*

“Your teachers,” Ms. Mathilde said, peering at Evelyn over rose-gold spectacles, “only had good things to say about you. A promising fine young woman. A smart young lady. A good, obedient, faithful girl.”

Evelyn gripped at her closed knees and said nothing. She watched Ms. Mathilde’s short, conch-pink nail run down the list of her grades.

Ms. Mathilde’s pink lips curled at the corners. “You’ve made me so proud.”

The lacquered cigarette holder was put down. It was still smoking.

Ms. Mathilde went around her broad oaken desk. Her long shapely shadow had reached Evelyn’s toes before she did.

Evelyn locked her knees. The back of her thighs were sweating through her muslin skirt and leaving damp patches on her chair’s cushion – it was summer, after all, and it was sort of her chair now, her place in this room, considering the countless times she’d sat on it.

She imagined the smoke staining the green velvet curtains and the apples embroidered on the floor.

Even Ms. Mathilde’s thick dark lashes smelled of the grey smoke.

“My rooms,” Ms. Mathilde had told her a couple of summers ago, when they were lounging by the pool, “bedroom and study, they’re my personal rooms. The heart of my house. You should choose your décor well for your own personal rooms when the time comes, Evie, and more importantly, the rooms’ placement in the house. Hearts can keep secrets.”

And Evelyn’s mouth had formed a glad shape, well-practised, “Yes, Ma’am.”

*

Evelyn woke up.

Stretched.

“I brought you cake.”

Evelyn’s eyes snapped open. The lights had been turned on. Through their dusty lampshades they cast a jaundiced glow on her wilted plants, on the unmopped hardwood floor, on the unwiped furniture and unaired walls.

India was sat on the buttoned armchair near Evelyn’s bed. Her legs were crossed, booted ankle resting on a knee, and she was slowly wiping one of her old stuffed birds with a rag. The muted red bird, what had been probably its egg still on its preserved nest. Oh, that horrible dead thing.

She was still wearing Richard’s belt.

She was still wearing the blouse Evelyn had bought right after masturbating for the first time, in a dressing room, at the mystical age of eighteen when she should’ve had shaken off apples and G-clefs.

“Cake?” Evelyn said, wondering if all this was real.

India nodded at her bedside table. “Your comfort food. Is it still your comfort food? We’ll have a nice dinner some time – not tonight, though.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn turned to her bedside table. Cloudy cream bottles and yellowed books on poetry and romance. On a recently wiped down spot, the small cake box. She gingerly placed it on her lap, opened it, and found one of her silver forks already in it.

“I got this from my parents’ old house.”

“Is that why that’s your favourite?” India said.

Evelyn looked at her. “You know that?”

India ran a finger along a muted red plume. Red-gold in the jaundiced lamplight.

She took a moment before saying, “It takes time to observe attentively. You have to be patient. Wait for the moment that your eyes finally penetrate the subject.”

Evelyn didn’t like those choice of words. India had always been so morbid, so incomprehensible to her. “Is that. Is that another one of your hunting tips? Really, India.”

“No.” Pools of oil. “Well, a bit. But my art teacher told us that. In high school.”

“I see.”

“I’m an architect now.”

Evelyn slowly tightened her grip on her fork.

“I’ll be taking over the firm and our other business interests,” India went on. Her finger moved to the bird’s head. It looked soft. It was so well-preserved it looked alive. “I met with our lawyers and accountants. All seems well. But they tell me you don’t want anyone stepping into the house. Why? Do you know what it looks like right now?”

Evelyn put the box aside. “You didn’t shoot me. Why? I thought you would, I thought you and him – I thought, after what I said –”

Her face stretching into a ghastly thin-lipped smile, India said, “He took my father, which I already suspected early in his visit. He was about to take my mother. Took Mrs. McGarrick and my great-aunt as well. He walked in my house, taking everything from me. And he was too much like me. There were two hunters living in this house at that time, Mom, and you’re not one of them.”

“I’m not a prey,” hissed Evelyn, trembling, “and I don’t like all this hunting talk. Why don’t we get out of here. Have a proper chat downstairs. I’ll make some tea.”

India tilted her head. “All right, not a prey. A subject. My lifelong observation project.”

“I am your mother.”

“I told you all of that to comfort you,” India said, and blinked once.

Evelyn let out a pained whimper. She had done all that she could: she didn’t smother her child in the hopes that her child would be a better her. Born again in paradise. She had let India be puzzling India. Where had it all gone wrong? She rubbed one hand across her face. Her palm smelled of raw egg and strawberries. “India,” she said in pale tones, “please. For once, make sense, please.”

The bed dipped. India gently grasped Evelyn’s fork-wielding hand. “Eat your cake, and I’ll explain. It’ll be fine. All will be well.”

*

Evelyn woke up.

Stretched. Silky lotioned limbs and smooth sheets.

The thick curtains were slightly parted and the light winter rain was pebbling on the clean windowpanes. The hardwood floor was gleaming. Her plants were a vivid green. Her walls were a rich crimson. No clocks were ticking.

India was sat on the buttoned armchair near the bed. She was wearing a dark blue shirt, two buttons undone, and when she saw that Evelyn was awake, she put her tablet down. Pools of oil.

“Nice nap?”

Evelyn nodded. She smiled at the tray on her bedside table. “For me?”

Moist strawberry cake. A bottle of port.

She ate. She drank. She bit on strawberry pieces. Her toes curled into the smooth clean sheets.

Refreshed, Evelyn drew back her bedspread and told India, “Tired from work?”

“I just want us to feel complete,” India had explained. “I want us to get to know each other. We have all the time now, I made sure of it.” Evelyn forgot how many days ago had passed since. The strange familiar hours bled into one another.

On the bed of apples and G-clefs, India’s crown was barely touching the inside of Evelyn’s thigh, but she could still feel the crackle of goose flesh on her lotioned skin. Evelyn touched only India’s hair and scalp. She combed it with her fingers.

“You smell like antique silver,” India murmured. “Hothouse flower. Well-kept.”

“I miss dinners in the dining room.”

“The rest of the house still needs to be cleaned. Repaired. What do I smell like to you?”

Evelyn considered this. “Raw eggs. You’ve made omelettes again?”

India sat up. “Gunfire residue,” she corrected, a patient schoolmistress. “I smell like gunfire residue. And blood, because I had to use my hands for a bit.”

“Orchids,” muttered Evelyn, “with their eggshells and charcoals.” She shivered and hugged herself.

India read her downcast mood. “Don’t look so glum,” India said, reaching over and running a finger along a lock of Evelyn’s red-gold hair. It went past Evelyn’s bare shoulder, smooth and lotioned again, and past her rumpled nightgown. Almost waist-length now. “You’ll get it right next time. You’ll get it right, and I’ll let you treat me to some ice cream. Give and take, yes? Til then, just stay right here. Stay right here in your pretty rooms.”

*

“I just want us to feel complete,” India had explained. “I want us to get to know each other.”

Before Evelyn let the dewy and familiar shadows engulf her, she’d been out in the garden, clambering from the pool onto a grassy bank. The pool heaved with brackish water. Her white summer dress was soaked in it, and she had to clutch at India’s outstretched hand.

She did, and looking up, she saw Richard’s belt and India’s frayed hunting shirt.

Evelyn tugged India’s hand.

They both splashed.

When India reemerged, the muck and the rotten leaves and the grit looked at home on her face. She looked beatific as she stared at Evelyn with those pools of oil. She didn’t even flinch when Evelyn, repressing a shudder, reached over with a grimy hand and tucked a grimy lock of India’s hair behind her ear. The kiss Evelyn planted on her forehead looked a cross of ash. Her pools of oil slanted, and the smile in her voice sounded like the viscous sloshing that felt tight inside Evelyn, that made Evelyn want to rub something between her legs, when she assured Evelyn: “I’ll help you wash up.”

_fin_


End file.
